Posts Tagged With: Hostel

When you travel, there comes a time in every girl’s life where she’s faced with the dilemma of sharing the room with a someone who makes you want to rip your ears off and stomp on them in the middle of the night. Yes, I’m talking about the snorer of all snorers! When it’s someone you know and care about, it’s one thing but if it’s a complete stranger you’ve been assigned to share a room with – well that’s a whole other kettle of fish! Granted, they may not be able to help this condition but at the same time how am I at fault because I decided to pay a pretty penny to join a tour group and made the unfortunate mistake of booking at the same time as the said person.

To be completely honest, upon meeting each other, the person in question confessed that she was a snorer and had brought along earplugs to whoever wanted them. We laughed it off and let her know that everyone snores once in a while but when day turned to night, we finally understood what she was getting at. There’s snoring and then there was what we encountered when this lovely lady fell asleep. It was a constant roaring of a jet engine that didn’t stop and possibly got louder as the night progressed. It continued as she moved in her sleep from her back to her side and back again. It drowned out the constant banging on the wall from the people next door and almost blocked the sound of the people knocking on our door at 4am. It could be heard through my headphones while I had music blaring and allowed me to grab my iPod in the middle of the night with the swiftness of a ninja as my movements were left undetected by the others due to the engine that was revving up in our room. There was no stopping it and there was no sleep for the rest of us.

After 2 nights, I had made the decision that enough was enough. It was either me or her and I decided that it was high time to bail like a man the morning after when the beer goggles had worn out. No hard feelings but this was an act of self-preservation and if our next stop offered nothing more than a peaceful night’s sleep than I was in pure heaven.

So the advise I was given was to go jetboating in Makarora. Supposedly it’s the best jetboating deal around as you get to go out for

storytime

an hour instead of just 2o minutes. The disclaimer – you don’t feel like you’re going to crash into a rock but it’s much more beautiful so still definitely worth it. So after much thought (if I remember correctly – about a whole 2 seconds) I signed up.

Pool time fun

What I didn’t know at the time was that I was going to have to skip lounging around at the blue pools to be able to go jetboating and that the jetboat was going to break down which meant that we had to lounge around the hostel while listening out for the voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie to let us know when we could go jetboating. So there we were, lounging around the pool and in the sun waiting for the word. I moved from the sun to the shade and then was amused by the storytelling talent of yet another boy from the UK.

To end his torture and torment from anything but an attentive group of listeners – the call came and we were off to go jetboating. Was the waiting around and missing out on the blue pools worth it – YES! There’s nothing better than the 360s in the water. I was a fan and hooked and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Tried and feeling slightly too old for the hostel scene – we decided that we’d do it up kiwi style and got ourselves a bach. Woke up Saturday morning in a pretty amazing place across the street from Buffalo Beach in Whitianga that worked out to cost the same as a hostel. Take that hostel!!! Finally we were living the luxurious life – or just plain old big pimpin (blame the boys at work for the music that was blasting all day). The only problem was that I was so hungry from skipping dinner the night before that I was ready to chew off an arm. Luckily I had the English Superstar by my side and she handed me a glass of milk and asked if I fancied a little BBQ for breakfast. Who wouldn’t want BBQ first thing in the morning and so we set off to Cafe Nina.

Seems like a fitting advert at this point

The visions of steaks and pulled pork sandwiches dancing in my head wasn’t exactly what was being served but it was still a decent breakfast in what I would call a cafe with character. With all my nodding and grunting between mouthfuls of tasty food (and possibly some questionable sausages) we had come to the decision to do a boat tour of Coromandel. Personally I wanted to go out on one that looked like a little dingy where the threat of falling into the open sea loomed but I got vetoed and we wound up on in a glass bottom boat that seemed a lot safer. Turns out that the Scottish Avenger, Canadian Diva, and English Superstar that I travelled with would end up paying dearly that night for vetoing my decision but that’s a story that I think is best left untold. Like the say – what happens in Coromandel, stays in Coromandel.

natural boat garage

Despite the fact that we weren’t out on a little dingy – being out on the water on a beautiful Saturday afternoon couldn’t have been any better. My favourite part of the entire ride is when we stopped outside of some of the caves and they let me climb onto the roof of the boat. I climbed just like I was spiderman and tried not to let the gentle swaying of the boat plummet me head first into the ocean. Just incase you’re wondering – nobody fell in. All in all, a wonderful Saturday afternoon basking in the sun which made all the worries from a hectic work week just fade away.

On Friday, I got the text message that I was desperately hoping for – a rental was finally secured and all I had to do was be packed and ready to head to Rotorua right after work. Full of glee, I ran home during my lunch hour and did my best to throw the must needed items into a backpack and then spent the rest of the afternoon counting down the minutes until the weekend. The plan was to drive in the direction of Rotorua and the rest would magically work itself out.

Time to pull out the map to leave Aucks!

Looking back now, it’s a little funny on how leaving the city proved to be much harder than we first anticipated. We drove around Auckland in circles looking for a way onto the motorway. In the half hour that it took to figure this out, we managed to stall the car on a hill or two as well as cut off/block kiwis on their way home from work. Thankfully, it didn’t take much to adjust as we had an expert behind the wheel and we were off on a road trip of a lifetime!

We made it into Rotorua in record time but then like clockwork it was time for us to get lost again. As we looked for a place to crash – it seems like an almost impossible mission to find a hostel for the night. The only one we repeatedly kept driving by was BASE but everyone in the car agreed that we were boycotting that particular chain of hostels. After driving up and down a handful of streets repeatedly, we finally stopped a backpackers within the main area and went in to see if they’d take us in. As we stepped out of the car, we were hit with the magnificent scent of Rotorua. If this blog could be a scratch ‘n sniff, I would share the beauty of the smell but the best way I can describe it is that it smells just like egg farts.

Sadly, the egg fart smell of Rotorua did not compare to smell that eagerly awaited us in our room. When we checked in, we stupidly made the assumption that it would be just the four of us in a room. This was not the case. When we opened the door to our room, we were hit with the all too familiar smell of boy stink! The version of boy stink in Rotorua is hands down the worst I have been exposed to this far in life. Let’s just say that the next morning, I was excited to breathe in the eggy aroma of Rotorua as it was refreshing to the smell that was found in our room that first night in Rotorua.

It was 7pm. Diva and I were drinking sav at the pub when the mobile buzzed with the best news either one of us could have ever imagined receiving…we got the flat! I wouldn’t even let the long-haired staring/grinning blonde fool ruin this for me. Backtracking for a second, the other thing that I found out at the pub seconds before the mobile buzzed was that this guy wasn’t creepy due to a language barrier as he spoke English quite well…staring and grinning was just his preference. All that didn’t matter as I had one more night left in my stinky boy room. Like an excited little school girl, I packed all my stuff in preparation of leaving in the morning (long-haired staring/grinning blonde fool volunteered to help me with my bags and continued talking to me about being an adrenaline junkie and things to do in New Zealand but like I said before, I wasn’t going to let him ruin this for me). My alarm was set and morning couldn’t come soon enough.

In the morning, I bounced down to reception and handed in my keycard and I was outta there. No more hostel for me! I was done and that was that. I let everyone know that Diva and I had found a place and started spreading the news about our house-warming this weekend. After spending a week in the hostel I can definitely say that I’ve had my fill. I couldn’t get out of that place fast enough. Then out of no where, a dark cloud came in and ruined my sunshine moment. While signing the paperwork for the flat, we found out that the carpet cleaning hadn’t been done and thus, our move-in date had to be delayed until Saturday. WTF!

After a silent freak-out I went back to the hostel with my tail tucked between my legs and sadly asked to stay for another couple of nights. The only silvering lining is that I requested to room with Diva and Gutter Slut this time around. Don’t get me wrong…I still hate the hostel but will be a little better without the boy stink!